Province-wide examinations as a graduation requirement were reinstated in British Columbia after a 10-year hiatus in 1983. This study assessed the impact of grade-12 subject examinations (embodied in the Provincial Examination Program) on students, teachers, administrators, employers, and the school system. Completed survey questionnaires were…

The system of standardized second language tests administered to Swedish junior and senior high school students is described. The tests are used to give teachers an idea of the performance levels of their entire classes, not individual students, for comparison with national norms. They are administered more than a year before the students leave…

In the Dutch national examinations, reading comprehension tests are used for all languages. For the native language, reading comprehension is tested with reading passages and related questions to which the test-taker provides his own response, not choosing from a group of alternatives. One problem encountered in testing with these items is…

Two major issues are addressed in this commentary on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment: the design of the reading proficiency scale and interpretation of test data; and the dimensionality of this scale and the possibility of supplying data on specific skill dimensions. An examination of NAEP data and the…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is compared to the two studies of the National Educational Longitudinal Studies (NELS) Program--the National Longitudinal Study of the Class of 1972 (resurveyed in 1973, 1974, 1976, and 1979) and the 1980 High School and Beyond study (partially resurveyed and retested in 1982). The third phase…

The redesign of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has resulted in improved usefulness of the data set to conduct policy relevant research on Hispanic student achievement. Improvements include changing the procedure for ethnic identification to self-reporting, modifying sample selection, and planning for the conduct of special…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) currently tests seventeen-year-old students enrolled in public and private secondary schools, but it does not test "out-of-school" seventeen-year-olds who have either graduated or dropped out. Estimating that one of five seventeen-year-olds is out of school, the interpretability of…

The Council of Chief State School Officers has raised some issues pertinent to the implementation of a national project to collect statistical indicators of academic achievement and to compare them across states. The United States Department of Education shares this concern, with an emphasis on sampling schools for a school level analysis which…

Locally developed occupational tests were administered to 16- and 17-year-olds in a government-sponsored vocational education program in the United Kingdom over a six-month period in 1984. Job skills were tested in two occupational areas: use of a micrometer and invoice completion. Some performance tests were designed by researchers and some by…

Linear and equipercentile equating conversions were developed for two forms of the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) quantitative test and the verbal-plus-quantitative test. From a very large sample of students taking the GRE in October 1981, subpopulations were selected with respect to race, sex, field of study, and level of performance (defined…

Information on current trends and issues in English instruction, compiled by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions, is presented in this report, the fifth annual trends and issues report by the commissions. The commissions and their directors are as follows: (1) Commission on Language (James Stalker); (2)…

The purpose of the study was to determine whether particular aspects of movement control influenced the performance of 2-year-old children on a standard developmental test, and thus influenced assessments of intellectual progress based on that test. Six cerebral-palsied (CP) children were compared with six children not suffering motor system…

This manual provides information concerning the appropriate use of alternative testing techniques when pupils with handicapping conditions participate in statewide testing programs. It is written for parents and professionals involved in the education of pupils with handicapping conditions, and is to be used as a resource by members of Committees…

A one-parameter latent trait model was the basis of the test development procedures in the Basic Skills Assessment Program (BSAP) of the Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS). Several issues are involved in applying the Rasch model to an assessment program in a large school district. Separate sets of skills continua are arranged by…

This conference, whose theme was "The Testing Issue," addressed problems encountered with standardized testing in Alabama's historically black colleges and universities, and predominantly black high schools. It focused on immediate intervention strategies designed to provide access to high school diplomas, college, graduate and professional…